Kirk Hammett does not play on “Nothing Else Matters” from Metallica’s The Black Album.
James Hetfield performed the song’s guitars and vocals, while Lars Ulrich played drums and Jason Newsted played bass. Hammett was absent from the studio recording, even though he appears in the music video and later performed the song live with the band.
The song began as a personal guitar idea from Hetfield and developed into one of Metallica’s most recognizable ballads. Its arrangement expanded beyond the band’s usual lineup: Michael Kamen arranged the orchestral parts, and the London Symphony Orchestra performed on the recording. Randy Staub also contributed tambourine.
This credit is easy to misremember because Hammett is Metallica’s lead guitarist and is visibly associated with the band’s performances. He did, however, perform the acoustic introduction live in later versions. The studio recording’s guitar parts therefore should not be attributed to the full four-member lineup. “Nothing Else Matters” became one of the album’s major singles and reached number six in the United Kingdom and Ireland.